Globalization has unleashed the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases, connected societies through vulnerability to common threats, and revealed the limitations of domestic legislation in addressing economic, social, and political determinants of health. Yet if globalization has presented challenges to disease prevention and health promotion, with the COVID-19 pandemic making clear the governance challenges ahead, global health law offers the promise of bridging national boundaries to alleviate global inequities.
The academic field of global health law analyzes the law and policy frameworks that apply to the new public health threats, non-state actors, and regulatory instruments that structure global health. Arising out of international health law—which narrowly focuses on relationships among states—the field of global health law reflects the changing institutional architecture, norms, and diplomacy necessary to respond to the health threats of the twenty-first century.
The new law and policy frameworks, placing public health obligations on the global community of state and non-state actors, ensure justice in global health through institutions that embrace values of transparent governance, multisectoral engagement, and legal accountability. As the study and practice of global health law has expanded over the past decade, and especially through the COVID-19 response, students and scholars require a foundational text to comprehend this shifting landscape.
Lawrence O. Gostin and Benjamin Mason Meier have edited this text to help readers understand the promise of law and policy in global health. Assembling leading academics across the field of global health law, this volume (1) explains the conceptual frameworks and governance institutions that define the field, (2) applies global health governance to disease prevention and health promotion, (3) examines economic institutions that influence global health, and (4) analyzes international legal efforts to address rising health threats.